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As neurosurgeon Dr. Maheshi Wijeratne walked out of court, released on bail on Tuesday, leaving behind the horrors of a remand cell that she had endured for nearly a month, she wore round her neck not the tag of presumed innocence but bore on her shoulders the cross on which she had been crucified by social media and condemned ‘as guilty as hell.’

The brain specialist surgeon’s alleged offence: For requesting patients awaiting delicate brain operations to be done by her at Sri Jayewardenepura Hospital to purchase essential surgical EVDs and VP shunts from a specified private company, in which her family had a stake, though they were available in government hospitals at a far lower price.

Apart from the charges alleged in court by the Bribery Commission, outside of court, in the public domain, she was branded as an evil surgeon, a remorseless she-devil who operated on brain-damaged patients, the terminally ill and even the brain dead, provided they or their families bought expensive drugs and equipment, which she said was needed for the delicate surgery, from the specified private firm if they wished the operation to be done by her expert hands.

This was no trial by mass media; this was conviction unanimously passed and sentence summarily pronounced on a neurosurgeon by Privy Councillors on Social Media, merely on the charges read out by the prosecuting counsel, irrespective of whether those charges would stand in court when the trial began.

But that’s not all. If scorching her reputation and indelibly branding her wasn’t enough to sate their inexplicable hate, they also couldn’t resist labelling her as ‘one greedy for money’.

DR. MAHESHI WIJERATNE: DAMNED BEFORE TRIAL ON SOCIAL MEDIA

What is the difference between ‘desire for money’ and ‘greedy for money’ but a question of degree, isn’t it?

And if amongst her accusers are those truly free from any desire for money or free from coveting more riches or realise insatiable desire feeds on desire and is the cause of never-ending woe, as expounded by the Buddha, and are truly content with what they have, then, in the words of Jesus Christ, ‘Let them cast the first stone’.

But if there’s none amongst them who has shed the binding fetters of desire, none amongst them who does not thirst for more nor covet more gains, let them lay down the stones they brought to throw and retire home in peace, and leave justice to be dispensed in a competent court of law, headed by an impartial judge.

Let him preside, sift through the evidence, interpret the laws of the land and deliver judgement.

In courts, even if an accused is found guilty, his lawyer has further rights of appeal to enable his client to escape the noose, unlike in an operating theatre, where the surgeon does not enjoy the luxury of numerous chances but has to exercise his one and only God-given chance to save the patient when he or she performs a craniotomy, cracking the skull to expose and operate on the brain.

It should be borne in mind that the brain is the most delicate and most sensitive organ in the human body, medical science’s most unexplored frontier, with vast tracts remaining untrodden by medical scientists and the least understood.

In such circumstances, where the life or death of a patient undergoing brain surgery depends not only on the surgeon’s skills but also on the quality of the equipment used, the importance of using proper and implanted shunts cannot be underscored enough.

As medical texts carefully explain, ‘The use of proper shunts is crucial in brain surgery, especially for treating hydrocephalus, the abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. Choosing the right shunt, including valve type and pressure setting, is vital for long-term success and minimising complications like infection, obstruction, or over-drainage.’

‘The use of inferior shunts in brain operations can lead to various complications, primarily due to improper drainage of cerebrospinal fluid and potential damage to surrounding tissues. This can result in a buildup of pressure in the brain as a result of hydrocephalus, infection, and other serious issues.’

Armchair critics who are deeply concerned about their neighbours’ morals and motives while forgetting their own, ignorantly impute immoral and improper motives to a surgeon’s specific request to a patient or his family to purchase specified medical drugs and equipment from a specified private firm, since only these specified drugs and equipment and not the inferior drugs and equipment stocked in government hospitals’ threadbare medical chests, will fortify the surgeon’s confidence that he or she has the necessary wherewithal to increase the chances of the brain operation turning out successful; and not place the patient’s life at risk by the use of inferior medical drugs and equipment, even if it’s available at the government’s store.

What better person than a medical doctor himself, Health Minister JVP’s Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, to give his considered opinion as to why doctors and surgeons must have the freedom to prescribe drugs and medical equipment, even if available at government hospitals?

On June 18, the Association of Medical Specialists, writing to the Minister of Health and expressing their concerns over drug shortages at government hospitals, sought from the minister an immediate assurance: whether it was permissible or not to ask patients to purchase certain drugs from pharmacies outside government hospitals. Furthermore, they asked him whether it was permissible to name a particular pharmacy from which to buy the drugs.

At the weekly Cabinet briefing held on June 24, Cabinet spokesman and Health Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa gave a most pragmatic and professionally satisfying response.

He declared, ‘The ministry cannot supply all the drugs and medical tools that different doctors and specialist surgeons may want to treat patients or operate on them.’

‘If there is a small difference,’ he continued, ‘from the ones supplied by the ministry to the ones they require, and it is not available in hospitals, they can ask patients to bring it from outside pharmacies. If patients or their families are not aware exactly which pharmacy may have it, the doctor or surgeon or anyone else is free to tell them at which pharmacy it will be available.’

As Sunday Punch of June 29 commented on the minister’s realistic reply:

‘It’s a frank answer that accepts reality: the sad, sorry state presently existing at government hospitals. That’ll do nicely for the moment. In the gloomy backdrop of a prolonged drought of essential drugs, it is one that sends a ray of relief to physicians and specialists that, at least, they can prescribe medicines for their patients to buy from outside pharmacies, and rather than send patients on a pharmacy crawl, searching for the prescribed drugs, they, the doctors, can freely direct them to a named pharmacy and ask them to buy it from there, without the fear of landing in prison on corruption charges and being crucified on social media.’

But though the minister’s verbal assurance may have served to calm specialists’ anxieties temporarily, the absence of a ministerial circular or a gazette notification to give legal force to the minister’s verbal proclamation gave surgeons the shivers and their operating fingers an attack of the nerves, fearing the same remand fate that befell their colleague, neurosurgeon Dr. Maheshi Wijeratne, will befall them, too, if the assuring words, expressed in a bedside manner by a fellow doctor, were to remain as mere ministerial musings aired at a media briefing and take no legal flight.

A report in last Sunday’s Island states: ‘Investigations are already underway into complaints that some cardiac surgeries were either indefinitely delayed or not conducted at all, despite the availability of funds and equipment. A key complaint, based on a verbal statement from a patient, alleges that certain doctors deliberately delayed urgent procedures for patients referred from government hospitals, despite the government allocating Rs. 300 million annually for such surgeries.

It further states: ‘According to CIABOC inquiries, two doctors from the cardiac surgery unit are accused of manipulating the hospital’s procurement process to favour high-priced medical equipment over lower-cost, equally effective alternatives. These actions allegedly forced patients to shoulder inflated costs for essential surgeries. In some cases, even when the necessary equipment was available within the hospital, patients were told to purchase it privately.’

But in these perverse environs, where corruption is held to rule the hearts of public officials and govern every transaction they make, where everyone has skeletons to hide in their closets and fears at dawn they’ll rattle out, and where each awaits the prison bars and walks in the shadows of prison walls, can there be hope for any honest man to efficiently work and produce successful results in the fields he sows his productive seed in, without the evil crotchety eye of envy falling on him and the accusing hand eternally pointed at him?

In his address to the court, appealing for bail, Dr. Maheshi’s defence counsel, Saliya Peiris, said, ‘This investigation is based on facts and evidence. This is not merely a case of financial fraud involving equipment; it is a grave matter that endangered innocent lives.’

Counsel Saliya Pieris added, ‘The Commission had clearly stated it was not investigating professional ethics. Then how did they publicly claim my client had performed surgeries on brain-dead patients? How did they allege that over 70 percent of her patients had died? These claims were clearly made to draw media attention, not to uncover the truth, but to play to the gallery.’

‘In this case, there is no public outcry,’ Saliya Peiris told court. ‘What we are seeing is an artificially created wave on social media. This conduct will eventually erode public confidence in the rule of law, if not today, very soon. And when that happens, even the Commission’s own officers will be affected’.

Another defence counsel, Gunaratne Wanninayake, addressing the court, said, ‘At this moment we have good sunlight. However, the lights are on in the courtroom.”

On the part of the Bribery Commission, they could not be found wanting in their enthusiasm not only to see the neurosurgeon arrested and remanded but also to ensure her conviction at all costs.

Leaving no stone unturned to see her guilty as charged, they issued public appeals to the people to come and complain more.

As reported in the Daily Mirror on June 21, the Bribery Commission ‘called on patients and members of the public to provide information regarding neurosurgical procedures performed under the supervision of Specialist Neurosurgeon Dr. Maheshi Surasinghe Wijeratne at the Sri Jayewardenepura General Hospital.’

The Commission’s statement, issued to the media, said, ‘Statements have already been recorded from 77 individuals affected by these operations.’

Social media is not London’s Hyde Park Soap Box Corner, where traditionally the laws of slander are silent. Here on this ground of ultimate freedom of speech, people can say the worst of anyone they intensely dislike without fearing a legal suit for damages of any kind.

In the interest of justice, it should be borne in mind that the question of a person’s guilt or innocence is not one for social media pundits to adjudicate but solely for a judge in a court of law to decide.